Diddy Kong MU's

[DarkStarStorm]

Gotcha.

Diddy also has the option of SideB while holding the banana. Its very possible to keep bowser guessing and scared, then react when bowser starts to play pro actively. The smaller the stage, the harder it is for diddy. Not a hard counter, slight advantage

 

[kiw1]

thank you @ AbstractLogic im actually now trying a bit harder in pm, i was mostly improving while i was in sweden so will now do some training at home as well

 

[AbstractLogic]

thank you @ AbstractLogic im actually now trying a bit harder in pm, i was mostly improving while i was in sweden so will now do some training at home as well

If you use skype, you should totally give me your username, We're building a skype group for the kong

 

[Spice]

Hello everyone, new board member here.

I have been working on Diddy for awhile, and one MU that I've run into considerable difficulty with is Mario. Mario's fireballs seem to come out a bit quicker than the peanuts and they also break most aerials from what I've seen. I can't seem to find a good approach here, and though I'm newer to P:M I'd be inclined to say that this is not the best match-up for Diddy. Any thoughts?

 

[Soft Serve]

Hello everyone, new board member here.

I have been working on Diddy for awhile, and one MU that I've run into considerable difficulty with is Mario. Mario's fireballs seem to come out a bit quicker than the peanuts and they also break most aerials from what I've seen. I can't seem to find a good approach here, and though I'm newer to P:M I'd be inclined to say that this is not the best match-up for Diddy. Any thoughts?

theres some mario discussion on this page: http://smashboards.com/threads/kong-kollege-diddy-kong-tactical-discussion.331665/page-19

In my opinion its rough for us but like all mu's completely doable. we definitely have the tools to win it. It just really depends on how the mario goes about positioning the fireballs and how we deal with them. Shielding isn't overly-detrimental like it is verses falco, but Its still not great to do because of how much shield-stun the dair and other moves have. keep banana control and try to get under mario he full-hop fireballs, but respect the dair. you have to respect the traveling arc the fireballs have, you can crawl under some of the arcs or side-b through them. When juggling mario be careful of the dair because it leads to stupid easy combos on diddy if you don't SDI out/behind him. Mario has better hitboxes than diddy so you have to respect his options a bit more and create openings off of his mistakes and bananas. You can apply pressure as well but be careful with how to do it, as if you land on his shield without jank (z-drop banana foot stool all day) you will get OoS dair'd into a free stock.

Recoverying against mario is difficult as if you get predictable you will get caped. Try to recover low and sweet spot so getting capped doesn't kill you, and be ready to tech the bairs if he wants to come down with you. Gimping mario isn't hard as his recovery is kinda linear. Shoot at him, toss bananas as he gets closer to the ledge to control space or steal jumps/walljumps, grab ledge and bair/punish his landing as needed.

 

[SpiderMad]

Is there a video/match out there featuring z drop banana foot stool. You're saying I should shield a lot or little vs Falco?

 

[Soft Serve]

I don't think shielding vs a falco (mostly lasers) is a very good option unless you are blocking a laser and rolling/wding backward like immediately. You put a lot on the line by shielding a laser when falco is within range to close the gap.

I'll try to make a z-drop banana foot stool video sometime this week, I don't have any videos of me using it. I find it most useful against fatties though because then the positioning of the banana is a bit more lenient.

 

[DeFish]

I've been playing a bunch of Dolphin Netplay over the last week, which has let me play against some characters that I've never actually had to deal with. In particular, I played against a pretty solid Sonic and a very solid Luigi. I figured I'd sum up what I took away from both matchups:

Sonic
--------------------
Holy crap this guy is fast. That should go without saying, but his ability to fly around the battlefield definitely put me on my back foot for the first game or so. He's able to consistently get close without having to be on the ground through smart use of his neutral-B and aerials, and between his fair and up-B I found that recovering against him got more dangerous the closer I was to the stage. Overall the matchup didn't seem heavily in anyone's favor, as peanuts and bananas were able to slow or outright stop his approaches, and he didn't seem particularly difficult to combo/tech-chase. Edge-guarding him can be a bit of a pain, due to a very strong vertical recover (up-B) and pretty decent horizontal recovery (pretty much every other B special). Getting him off and below the stage shuts down a lot of his strong horizontal recovery options, so I found myself using setups that ended in fair pretty often. Given how much time he likes to spend in the air anyway, that option felt even better.

Some random notes:

• Sonic's down-B can travel over bananas, but his side-B cannot. Being able to visually differentiate the two is really important to knowing how safe you are, assuming there's a banana between you.
• A lot of his approaches can be shielded or crouch canceled. I found that shielding and then glide tossing a banana out of shield was the best way to handle him when he seemed out of control, although against a more grab heavy Sonic I could see that being a poorer choice.
• Peanuts felt very risky, since he was often able to just jump/neutral-B over them to get to me. I think his down-B also went through them. That being said, they felt like one of my best options for edgeguarding him, especially if you're playing against a Sonic that can't consistently sweet spot the edge.
• Speaking of which, since Sonic's up-B is completely vertical, I found that jumping off stage and AGTing a banana down while moving back onto the stage was a good way to punish that recovery, when he's recovering from below.

Overall, this matchup was extremely fun, and I think that both characters have the tools to make life difficult for the other person.


Luigi
--------------------
Having never played against Luigi before, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from him. I'm familiar with some of his strengths (mis-fires, nair, and wavedash), but Luigi is definitely a character that can easily take you by surprise if you're not ready for him. He can recover from very far away using a combiation of up-B, side-B, and down-B. Using side-B, down-B, and his wavedash he's able to cover horizontal distances on-stage very quickly, and getting hit with a mis-fired side-B was almost a guaranteed death at pretty much any point. That being said, he gets dumpstered by peanuts, which stop pretty much all of his approach options. Having a banana between you on the ground prevents him from wavedashing and using his down-B to close the gap, forcing him to either approach with side-B or in the air. This may not be anything earthshattering, but having a banana on the ground between us very consistently resulting in him being forced to play very defensively and being slowly forced offstage. I really can't overstate the importance of all the options that single banana can cover. This matchup felt in our favor during the neutral game, assuming that the above mentioned banana was in play. Without that, it becomes much more even, but I don't think it's every really in Luigi's favor. Even without a banana on the ground, peanuts and thrown bananas still do a lot to mess with his approach. We were both able to consistently turn a single hit into a 40-50% combo, although I think that with better DI I would have been able to avoid more of his follow ups. Honestly, this matchup felt like it would have been in my favor if I was a bit more familiar with how to play it.

Some random notes:

• Like I said before, peanuts are amazing in this matchup. They stop his side-B completely, and he really has no way to deal with them being spammed. The games that I won saw heavy peanut use.
• His recovery is fairly predictable, but I still found it hard to prevent. I think this comes down to edge-guarding being one of the weaker parts of my game personally, though. I think that my last point in the Sonic section about AGTing bananas to stifle his vertical recovery would work out well here.
• Our up-B and his side-B interact in interesting ways. We completely lose to mis-fired side-B's, regardless of charge. However, I was able to knock him out of his side-B pretty consistently when he wasn't charging it with various charge levels of the up-B. I didn't know going into it that his entire body is a hitbox during his side-B, so be careful when recovering from below him. A final note on his side-B is that the hit frames stay out longer than you'd think when he hits a wall, so stay clear of him until he visibly goes into his falling animation.

Overall, this matchup feels in our favor, but I found Luigi very frustrating to play against. His ability to gimp with random mis-fired side-B's was pretty annoying, and his ability to gap-close horizontal distances caught me off guard a few times.

 

[Soft Serve]

I pretty much agree with all your conclusions on the sonic match up, i have similar thoughts and i play a good sonic all the time (i play nazo first round EVERY goddamn biweekly).

I dont know much about luigi other than that we camp him hard but comboing is difficult.

 

[MToaste]

The matchups that I have found difficult so far are mainly fast and extremely light/slippery characters. Namely: Falcon, Luigi and Samus (probably Squirtle too, but I haven't fought any great Squirtles.) Luigi is the easiest of the three, but as discussed, he can be very frustrating due to it being difficult to follow anything up on him. Samus similarly, but she has so many other tools and projectiles that make for a tough fight. I might share some deeper thoughts about some of these characters later!

On the discussion of Mario:

I find Mario as a character difficult to deal with no matter who I play, but the only particular detriments I see for Diddy versus Mario are Mario's incredible d-throw game and his edge guarding, as mentioned. If you recover low it isn't much of an issue, and recovering super high is also an option, though I try not to do it often. So, it really doesn't feel much different that facing someone like Ike at the ledge to me, just that Mario has a safer time going off stage to get you. If Mario ever gets a grab on me, at low% he seems to always get at least an up smash into re-grab, into another up smash or just about anything else. You don't want to get caught in your shield against Mario at all, really. I find the matchup very volatile for that reason.

He's got a great wavedash to pick up yer bananas, but his low speed doesn't really make it much of an option like with other characters such as Falcon. It's also very easy to pull bananas against a Mario once you have space for that reason, I feel. It can also be a little tricky to combo him due to his weight, but, for example, once you get a feel for the %'s he can act before hitting the ground after d-throw, you can read and punish accordingly instead of going for a tech chase. The weight definitely works in your favour at high %; it's very nice that up-throw seems to kill at ~130 on most stages. On all light characters I generally try to fish for a banana -> up throw as an easy finisher at higher percents.

The fireball approaches were something that I struggled with initially (and was convinced that it was a poor match for Diddy), but you just have to learn not to give Mario any respect when he's coming at you with those, heh. Generally what I try to do is wait at a mid-range from Mario, and if he goes for a full-hop approaching fireball, you get a free nair or side-b kick. With a banana, you can either do the latter to some success (he ends up above you, so you get some stage control) or glide toss your banana into the fireball and shield as he comes in from the air, getting you a grab. Otherwise, hey, he's in the air! Do what you want to him! Shooting a bunch of aerial peanuts also makes it more difficult for Mario to come in with those, as he's pressured in the vicinity that he wants to jump to throw the fireball. If he's hanging back with the fireballs, generally I try to make sure I have two bananas out, then continuously glide-toss them and shooting peanuts when you have the chance and Mario can't really keep up with the barrage (this works pretty well against most projectile-heavy characters for me, and seems to be a good practice in principle.) Jabbing fireballs is a bit hard with Diddy, but when one falls into position for it, it seems to be a pretty good option. If all else fails, you can always try for a powershield!

Edge guarding the guy feels pretty good, but it's pretty hard to gimp Mario with anybody haha. I find cartwheels pretty effective on Mario off-stage since he has to come back fairly slowly and low with cape, but if he goes real low and uses down-b, you can actually beat it with a banana <3.

 

[DarkStarStorm]

I know that this is the wrong question for this forum but how on Earth do you make Luigi's down b rise?! I've tried mashing the b button and it still doesn't work. What am I doing wrong?

The matchups that I have found difficult so far are mainly fast and extremely light/slippery characters. Namely: Falcon, Luigi and Samus (probably Squirtle too, but I haven't fought any great Squirtles.) Luigi is the easiest of the three, but as discussed, he can be very frustrating due to it being difficult to follow anything up on him. Samus similarly, but she has so many other tools and projectiles that make for a tough fight. I might share some deeper thoughts about some of these characters later!

On the discussion of Mario:

I find Mario as a character difficult to deal with no matter who I play, but the only particular detriments I see for Diddy versus Mario are Mario's incredible d-throw game and his edge guarding, as mentioned. If you recover low it isn't much of an issue, and recovering super high is also an option, though I try not to do it often. So, it really doesn't feel much different that facing someone like Ike at the ledge to me, just that Mario has a safer time going off stage to get you. If Mario ever gets a grab on me, at low% he seems to always get at least an up smash into re-grab, into another up smash or just about anything else. You don't want to get caught in your shield against Mario at all, really. I find the matchup very volatile for that reason.

He's got a great wavedash to pick up yer bananas, but his low speed doesn't really make it much of an option like with other characters such as Falcon. It's also very easy to pull bananas against a Mario once you have space for that reason, I feel. It can also be a little tricky to combo him due to his weight, but, for example, once you get a feel for the %'s he can act before hitting the ground after d-throw, you can read and punish accordingly instead of going for a tech chase. The weight definitely works in your favour at high %; it's very nice that up-throw seems to kill at ~130 on most stages. On all light characters I generally try to fish for a banana -> up throw as an easy finisher at higher percents.

The fireball approaches were something that I struggled with initially (and was convinced that it was a poor match for Diddy), but you just have to learn not to give Mario any respect when he's coming at you with those, heh. Generally what I try to do is wait at a mid-range from Mario, and if he goes for a full-hop approaching fireball, you get a free nair or side-b kick. With a banana, you can either do the latter to some success (he ends up above you, so you get some stage control) or glide toss your banana into the fireball and shield as he comes in from the air, getting you a grab. Otherwise, hey, he's in the air! Do what you want to him! Shooting a bunch of aerial peanuts also makes it more difficult for Mario to come in with those, as he's pressured in the vicinity that he wants to jump to throw the fireball. If he's hanging back with the fireballs, generally I try to make sure I have two bananas out, then continuously glide-toss them and shooting peanuts when you have the chance and Mario can't really keep up with the barrage (this works pretty well against most projectile-heavy characters for me, and seems to be a good practice in principle.) Jabbing fireballs is a bit hard with Diddy, but when one falls into position for it, it seems to be a pretty good option. If all else fails, you can always try for a powershield!

Edge guarding the guy feels pretty good, but it's pretty hard to gimp Mario with anybody haha. I find cartwheels pretty effective on Mario off-stage since he has to come back fairly slowly and low with cape, but if he goes real low and uses down-b, you can actually beat it with a banana <3.

My Zelda experience has a little relevancy here, what I do against Mario is I place a dins at my feet and guard it with Nayru's, Mario "baits" out a grounded Nayru's with a fireball and "punishes" it with a grab. But he gets hit with the dins and I get to go on the offensive. I would work even better with Diddy because he doesn't have to worry about grab armor. Stand over your banana and let him hit you with a fireball, shield, and he'll probably go in for a grab if he doesn't think about what he's doing. It's unbelievably easy for even pros to forget about mines/bananas/dins. He trips and you go on the offensive.

 

[MToaste]

The guy I know that plays Luigi basically stands up every time he mashes B, so I assume you just have to mash it harder haha.

That's an interesting way to deal with approaching fireballs. It sounds like you'd be relying on your opponent to overlook the banana, though, so it might not be as safe as some other punishes that you can do on reaction. I feel like it would come in handy as a nice situational option if you're comfortable with the option of him wavelanding to pick up the banana while you're in shield.

 

[DarkStarStorm]

The guy I know that plays Luigi basically stands up every time he mashes B, so I assume you just have to mash it harder haha.

That's an interesting way to deal with approaching fireballs. It sounds like you'd be relying on your opponent to overlook the banana, though, so it might not be as safe as some other punishes that you can do on reaction. I feel like it would come in handy as a nice situational option if you're comfortable with the option of him wavelanding to pick up the banana while you're in shield.

If he wavelands then you can u-smash OOS. Also if he is aware of the banana then he won't approach, allowing you some breathing room to set up YOUR approach. It was one of my main methods of halting Mario's pressure before I starting throwing in teledashes to make his approach sloppy and disjointed.

 

[DiSQO_BuNNY]

Luigi's down B rises with mashing, but won't rise if you fast fall it before the move starts. So its probably that

 

[GuruKid]

So Frozen recently picked up Mewtwo... and he's become a pain in the ass for my kong. Great walling + juggle ability, bananas aren't as potent due to Mewtwo generally being in the air, Frozen's really good item play + mewtwo's good glidetoss options discouraging me from generally plucking a second nanner... it can be a headache if I don't resort to setting up camp and forcing a teleport approach. I've relied on AGT's and nair/sideB kick (our longer-lingering moves) more than ever with this matchup but I'm curious to see what you guys have exeperienced against Mewtwo.

 

[Praxis]

I've played a Mewtwo and found it pretty easy, but he wasn't great at item play at all. (He was doing well in the tournament with Mewtwo, but I made him switch back to his main when we played in finals) I felt like the best way to handle Mewtwo was (yeah, I say this a lot, but I really mean it here) is to camp. Not necessarily hardcore, but Diddy doesn't have the same followup ability on Mewtwo that he has on everyone else. But it's really easy to screw up Mewtwo's spacing with bananas. Hold on to a banana, use it to punish Mewtwo's ranged stuff, and then punish his approach.

Mewtwo's stuff just doesn't get in on Diddy that well. I felt like I could just walk around leisurely holding a banana and shoot peanuts at him, and Diddy was well built to handle Mewtwo's ways in. Chasing him got me punished though.

Maybe I did well because I camp by default (doesn't work against matchups like Falco though), or maybe I just need to fight a better Mewtwo. Like I said, our Mewtwo here doesn't glide toss, and I've seen Mewtwo's glide toss. That sounds horrifying.

But you said it yourself:

it can be a headache if I don't resort to setting up camp and forcing a teleport approach.

Pitch a tent, bro.

 

[Praxis]

Serious question. I've seen a lot of people here talk about how they like the Diddy-Marth matchup.

Has anyone here played against a Marth that could actually glide toss and use it well in his play?

 

[Soft Serve]

Serious question. I've seen a lot of people here talk about how they like the Diddy-Marth matchup.

Has anyone here played against a Marth that could actually glide toss and use it well in his play?

I like the MU because I just camp with peanuts with a banana in my hand and I don't let it go unless I see an opportunity, like the marth trying to jump over a peanut or got hit by one or put himself on a platform or something. We get punished way to hard to try to out-neutral a marth without camping imo.

Marths that glide toss well make it that much riskier to let go of bananas.

 

[DeFish]

I like the MU because I just camp with peanuts with a banana in my hand and I don't let it go unless I see an opportunity, like the marth trying to jump over a peanut or got hit by one or put himself on a platform or something. We get punished way to hard to try to out-neutral a marth without camping imo..

Do you leave the second banana on stage somewhere, or only use 1? I've had Marths that were completely stumped by raining peanuts and a banana on the ground, and a couple where it was just way too difficult to prevent him from picking up the second banana for it to be worthwhile. Fortunately, most people on Netplay have pretty poor item handling.

 

[Soft Serve]

Do you leave the second banana on stage somewhere, or only use 1? I've had Marths that were completely stumped by raining peanuts and a banana on the ground, and a couple where it was just way too difficult to prevent him from picking up the second banana for it to be worthwhile. Fortunately, most people on Netplay have pretty poor item handling.

If I pull out a second banana against marth I make sure that it goes onto a platform that I have control over, so if he wants it he has to commit to leaving the ground which instantly give you the advantage in the MU imo. I made the mistake of leaving a banana laying around against Tai and he took a stock with it (no AGTs or glidetosses or anything, just smart play because he thinks about the game way better than me) and help onto it for a good min and a half. Like Diddy's DD game is scary with a banana, Marth's (fox's too) becomes that much more threatening.

Retreiving bananas is risky too but When I do throw them out and want it back i try to cover it with a sh popgun and either get the banana with the waveland out of popgun or waveland> dash>wd back.

 

[DeFish]

When I do throw them out and want it back i try to cover it with a sh popgun and either get the banana with the waveland out of popgun or waveland> dash>wd back.

I learned to waveland the popgun for this reason. I also like it when running across the stage to set up an edge guard, as it keeps your momentum up but gives your opponent something else to pay attention to when recovering. I've also used it in situations where I've fired the popgun to force a low recovery, then wavelanded off the stage into an aerial. It's hard to do without killing yourself, though.

 

[GrizzleDrizz1ed]

I main Olimar with Ness, Mewtwo, Squirtle, and Diddy as regular "others" and I play against a Diddy and DK almost exclusivley (when playing against this one player.) I really feel like Diddy has a lot of tools that cover more bases than most of the rest of the cast. I'm not sure what his weakness is. The only real weakness I think he has, is that he gives the player too much confidence and opens the door for him to make more mistakes.

Vs Olimar: His Dash attack absolutley crushes Olimar's recovery. He can be carried off stage with it and then jump kicked right after. His Barrel Blast can be charged in his return path crushing his hope for a return. His Peanuts only need 1 hit to completly gimp him if he's used his second jump or his Pluck Hop. His Peanut cancels Olimars pikmin throws and it shoots faster. Nearly all of his attacks cut through his Pikmin. His flip grab takes Priority over almost everything he does and has a deceptivly large grab box.

Vs Squirtle: Squirtle has a better matchup but Diddy ultimatly wins. It mostly comes down to who has more tricks and can hit harder. Diddy wins in both catagories, plus his flip wins against Withdraw.

Vs Ness: Ness can trade a lot but Diddy has the advantage and gains more from the trades. Easy monkey flip over PK Fire to land a few hit combo.

Vs Mewtwo: Throwing out Neutral air randomly, wrecks his teleport approach. It's not really a bad match up, for either one, but Diddy has more tools to take him farther.

I wouldn't say to gimp him at all, but I think the rest of the cast needs to have more tools to work with. He's a great character but he's a pain to fight against because he out options you. He has combos like crazy, an air grab that can gimp/combo, anti camp with a Peanut Gun that forces people to approach and doubles as an off stage spamable gimp tool, area control with Bananas, an Up B with amazing recovery potential and it attacks if inturupted, a multi hit dash attack that goes off stage doubling as a fantastic edge guard. These are just some of the amazing tools he has.

I just hope that the rest of the cast is given options to compete with this. He's still in his baby stage at the moment, but I think he may be the best character (or at least in a solid top tier) in the right hands.

I know I mentionted it lightly before, but he isn't fun to play against. He is fun to play with and watch, but very frustrating to play against. Mostly because I often feel like I don't have any good options against him.

 

[Praxis]

I main Olimar with Ness, Mewtwo, Squirtle, and Diddy as regular "others" and I play against a Diddy and DK almost exclusivley (when playing against this one player.) I really feel like Diddy has a lot of tools that cover more bases than most of the rest of the cast. I'm not sure what his weakness is. The only real weakness I think he has, is that he gives the player too much confidence and opens the door for him to make more mistakes.

Vs Olimar: His Dash attack absolutley crushes Olimar's recovery. He can be carried off stage with it and then jump kicked right after. His Barrel Blast can be charged in his return path crushing his hope for a return. His Peanuts only need 1 hit to completly gimp him if he's used his second jump or his Pluck Hop. His Peanut cancels Olimars pikmin throws and it shoots faster. Nearly all of his attacks cut through his Pikmin. His flip grab takes Priority over almost everything he does and has a deceptivly large grab box.

Vs Squirtle: Squirtle has a better matchup but Diddy ultimatly wins. It mostly comes down to who has more tricks and can hit harder. Diddy wins in both catagories, plus his flip wins against Withdraw.

Vs Ness: Ness can trade a lot but Diddy has the advantage and gains more from the trades. Easy monkey flip over PK Fire to land a few hit combo.

Vs Mewtwo: Throwing out Neutral air randomly, wrecks his teleport approach. It's not really a bad match up, for either one, but Diddy has more tools to take him farther.

I wouldn't say to gimp him at all, but I think the rest of the cast needs to have more tools to work with. He's a great character but he's a pain to fight against because he out options you. He has combos like crazy, an air grab that can gimp/combo, anti camp with a Peanut Gun that forces people to approach and doubles as an off stage spamable gimp tool, area control with Bananas, an Up B with amazing recovery potential and it attacks if inturupted, a multi hit dash attack that goes off stage doubling as a fantastic edge guard. These are just some of the amazing tools he has.

I just hope that the rest of the cast is given options to compete with this. He's still in his baby stage at the moment, but I think he may be the best character (or at least in a solid top tier) in the right hands.

I know I mentionted it lightly before, but he isn't fun to play against. He is fun to play with and watch, but very frustrating to play against. Mostly because I often feel like I don't have any good options against him.

Diddy as the best character in PM? No way. Absolutely no way.

His recovery isn't being punished hard enough yet, it's got some huge flaws. He's got good air combos but he doesn't punish as hard as Fox. He's got great options and that's what makes him a solid character, but there's lots of other characters with stuff on him. He gets punished hard for his mistakes (especially if the opponent knows how to edgeguard him) and he's vulnerable to his own bananas.

 

[GrizzleDrizz1ed]

Diddy as the best character in PM? No way. Absolutely no way.

His recovery isn't being punished hard enough yet, it's got some huge flaws. He's got good air combos but he doesn't punish as hard as Fox. He's got great options and that's what makes him a solid character, but there's lots of other characters with stuff on him. He gets punished hard for his mistakes (especially if the opponent knows how to edgeguard him) and he's vulnerable to his own bananas.

He may not be the "best" and I'm fine with that. As I said, I think he's solidly in the top tier. I don't think they should change him much, but he has more tools than most of the other characters and they don't have tools to deal with it in most cases. You talk about him getting punished pretty hard but he can have surprising recovery time on a lot of moves (Up B if angled right) where many other characters aren't given that luxury. If anything, I'm more saying that I'd like it if more of the cast could deal with his shenanagins. I'm curious to know what you think his weaknesses are. So far, he's comboable, but thats a weakness most characters have.

 

[DeFish]

He may not be the "best" and I'm fine with that. As I said, I think he's solidly in the top tier. I don't think they should change him much, but he has more tools than most of the other characters and they don't have tools to deal with it in most cases. You talk about him getting punished pretty hard but he can have surprising recovery time on a lot of moves (Up B if angled right) where many other characters aren't given that luxury. If anything, I'm more saying that I'd like it if more of the cast could deal with his shenanagins. I'm curious to know what you think his weaknesses are. So far, he's comboable, but thats a weakness most characters have.

Like you said, the biggest is he's at an unfortunately perfect combo weight. Aside from that:

• Bananas can be used against him. If people ever learn this, they might have less to complain about.
• A recovery very vulnerable to projectiles. People try to edgeguard Diddy like you would Fox by trying to knock him out of his up-b, which is obviously a bad idea. Try recovering against a needle-happy Sheik and tell me how broken Diddy feels.
• Peanuts are one of the weakest projectiles in the game, in terms of priority. They can be swatted, and most other projectiles will rip right through them. They can also be caught and thrown back. Really, there's not much reason to be getting camped by just peanut spam.
• A lack of true combos. Most of Diddy's combos are just techchases, and while some things like side-b set up for other moves very smoothly (side-b -> fair is notably good here) good DI and teching can actually do a lot to slow Diddy down.
• CC and punish the dash attack. It's absurd how much people just let him roll through with that thing.

Diddy has counterplay, the problem is that people get too flustered playing against him to really stop and take stock of it. Diddy runs with momentum like a space animal, and if you let him get started against you then you're going to have a bad time. Pressure is one of the best ways to keep Diddy in check, but people are afraid to do anything but shield when he holds a banana.

I realize that this all sounds like the normal mantra of "People need to learn the MU", but that's really what it boils down to.

And for the record, Diddy's barrels when he's knocked out of his up-b are silly and probably not 100% necessary.

 

[Praxis]

Like you said, the biggest is he's at an unfortunately perfect combo weight. Aside from that:

• Bananas can be used against him. If people ever learn this, they might have less to complain about.
• A recovery very vulnerable to projectiles. People try to edgeguard Diddy like you would Fox by trying to knock him out of his up-b, which is obviously a bad idea. Try recovering against a needle-happy Sheik and tell me how broken Diddy feels.
• Peanuts are one of the weakest projectiles in the game, in terms of priority. They can be swatted, and most other projectiles will rip right through them. They can also be caught and thrown back. Really, there's not much reason to be getting camped by just peanut spam.
• A lack of true combos. Most of Diddy's combos are just techchases, and while some things like side-b set up for other moves very smoothly (side-b -> fair is notably good here) good DI and teching can actually do a lot to slow Diddy down.
• CC and punish the dash attack. It's absurd how much people just let him roll through with that thing.

Diddy has counterplay, the problem is that people get too flustered playing against him to really stop and take stock of it. Diddy runs with momentum like a space animal, and if you let him get started against you then you're going to have a bad time. Pressure is one of the best ways to keep Diddy in check, but people are afraid to do anything but shield when he holds a banana.

I realize that this all sounds like the normal mantra of "People need to learn the MU", but that's really what it boils down to.

And for the record, Diddy's barrels when he's knocked out of his up-b are silly and probably not 100% necessary.

Also, there is only one moment in his entire up-B charge process where he can sweet spot the ledge. If he releases earlier, he dies. If he holds the charge even a fraction of a second too long, he will overshoot.

The threat of a ledge hog or an actual ledge hog will force Diddy to hold the charge. People do this to me all the time- rushing to the ledge- but then they stay on the ledge and treat me like I'm Fox's up B.

All you have to do is get on the ledge and charge a Smash. Seriously.

Diddy's secret weakness- threaten a ledge hog in the moment he can sweet spot, then charge a Smash. Free tipper or dtilt kill move.

I only know one person who does this to me correctly every time, but it's incredibly hard to recover against. The only times I ever make it back is if my percentage is low enough and the barrel misfire catches him and I get another shot. It's the weakness in Diddy's recovery- that you cannot sweet spot after charging too much and it is very very hard to sweet spot.

 

[GrizzleDrizz1ed]

Also, there is only one moment in his entire up-B charge process where he can sweet spot the ledge. If he releases earlier, he dies. If he holds the charge even a fraction of a second too long, he will overshoot.

The threat of a ledge hog or an actual ledge hog will force Diddy to hold the charge. People do this to me all the time- rushing to the ledge- but then they stay on the ledge and treat me like I'm Fox's up B.

All you have to do is get on the ledge and charge a Smash. Seriously.

Diddy's secret weakness- threaten a ledge hog in the moment he can sweet spot, then charge a Smash. Free tipper or dtilt kill move.

I only know one person who does this to me correctly every time, but it's incredibly hard to recover against. The only times I ever make it back is if my percentage is low enough and the barrel misfire catches him and I get another shot. It's the weakness in Diddy's recovery- that you cannot sweet spot after charging too much and it is very very hard to sweet spot.

Thanks for the info. I've had a really hard time against him and the player I play against doesn't even use bananas. He doesn't always shoot for the sweetspot but often archs into the middle of the stage, at which point he has a surprising recovery time so it's weird to punish (with Olimar). I know Olimar has a good Dsmash so I'll try and catch him with that next time he's aiming for the ledge.

 

[DeFish]

It might be worth your time to go into training with Diddy and experiment with where you can go based on your starting angle. I know Olimar's fair has a nice disjoint, so if you can get a feel for the general area he'll recover to you might be able to punish it that way. There's always a chance that he'll shorten his recovery if he sees you doing that, but then you have stage control and can potentially force him back off again.

 

[Praxis]

Thanks for the info. I've had a really hard time against him and the player I play against doesn't even use bananas. He doesn't always shoot for the sweetspot but often archs into the middle of the stage, at which point he has a surprising recovery time so it's weird to punish (with Olimar). I know Olimar has a good Dsmash so I'll try and catch him with that next time he's aiming for the ledge.

So you know the mechanics- the longer Diddy charges, the further he goes. From this you'll realize, logically, there is only one point in the charge process that he'll reach the ledge without passing it. Charge a split second longer, and your hurtbox will pass the lip.

I'm not sure about Olimar, but i've had a lot of issues with my training partner charging Roy's Fsmash on the lip the instant he knows I've charged too long. Even Falco dairing on the ledge can be effective.

I'd pick Diddy in training mode and play around with the up-B to figure out the distances on charge. But when I watch diddies, most of their recoveries are not sweet spotted.

When Diddy shoots for the middle of the stage, just swat him down. Don't aim to punish the landing, just aim for him. Most of your attacks, especially charged smashes, will beat him.

If he's not going for the lip, try not to commit until he's about to release. If you have a good understanding of Diddy's up B you can understand his angle and prepare to land a smash there or bat him with a quick aerial depending on whether he is going at a high arc or almost sideways.

For example, Falco's nair and bair and even dair all beat Diddy's up B even unsweetspotted. His dsmash beats most ledge recoveries and Fsmash covers landing options for higher arcs.

 

[Soft Serve]

Thanks for the info. I've had a really hard time against him and the player I play against doesn't even use bananas. He doesn't always shoot for the sweetspot but often archs into the middle of the stage, at which point he has a surprising recovery time so it's weird to punish (with Olimar). I know Olimar has a good Dsmash so I'll try and catch him with that next time he's aiming for the ledge.

Olimar's Bair starts below him and is decently disjointed. Try holding ledge and refreshing invincibility, then go intercept his up-b with a DJ Bair. Because it starts below him you don't have to worry about Diddy aiming right for you and sneaking past the hitboxes. Alternatively you could just hold the ledge, and when he releases up-b do a normal ledge get up, turn around and d-tilt him, and combo into a fair. If Diddy does make it back to the ledge, don't give up stage for free, of he trys to do anything to bet back on stage go for a pivot grab. it covers all ledge jump aerials, rolls,and jump>side-b from diddy, and nets you a d-throw>fair or up-throw>fair.

 

[Spiritedwind(swind)]

I'm a metaknight main in P:M and i'm having a really hard time beating my friend who is a Diddy player.. all he does is dash attack dash attack and spikes me with wither his Bair or his up b and try to DI away from his ground assults and his spikes but its just hard for me to kill him off stage and end his stocks safely... I use to be able to body him but i gave him a few pointers and now its like he always beats me i need help.
Side stepping works when i can time it right but the way that MK works is by racking up a lot of damage and then killing ive gimped him a few times but he just comes back by spiking its so annoying!

 

[Spiritedwind(swind)]

again against mn my ground game is shut down by the nanners which will stop my tech chase game and my gab follow upsthe only way that i can win is by getting him in the air and even then that side b gets me

 

[Praxis]

I'm a metaknight main in P:M and i'm having a really hard time beating my friend who is a Diddy player.. all he does is dash attack dash attack and spikes me with wither his Bair or his up b and try to DI away from his ground assults and his spikes but its just hard for me to kill him off stage and end his stocks safely... I use to be able to body him but i gave him a few pointers and now its like he always beats me i need help.
Side stepping works when i can time it right but the way that MK works is by racking up a lot of damage and then killing ive gimped him a few times but he just comes back by spiking its so annoying!

Dash attack to dash attack shouldn't actually work at most percentages unless the opponent DI's wrong. There's a DI to escape it, but I'm rarely at the other end of it so I don't actually know it. I THINK you want to DI away and down and tech the ground.

You should work on your banana game. Wavedash over the naners during your tech chases if he's tech rolling past them.

Stop letting his side B hit you, it has a small hitbox. Hit him when it gets predictable.

 

[Praxis]

BTW, guys? Zelda vs Diddy is brutal, but no Zeldas know how to use naners.

One of my crewmates started doing teledash > AGT.

Seriously. It's horrifying.

For those that don't know, when Zelda teleports with up-B, she actually moves (invisible and invincible) to the final location. In PM, grounded teleport can be airdodged out of. So Zelda can do up-B, move in any direction she wants, and airdodge halfway out of the teleport (which means Zelda can up-B to wavedash).

My crewmate now does grounded up-B to wavedash or AGT depending on where my naners are. If I leave my naner anywhere on stage, he instantly gets control of it. It is suddenly extremely dangerous to leave naners onstage. Plus Nayru's love takes control of naners (reflector) and is invulnerable.

I actually can still beat him because he's got a very one-track mind (I do much better than him in tournament), but it's always rough and I have to barely use naners and be super conservative with them.

There are soooo many ways other characters can control naners better than Diddy.


Luigi also is difficult because you get so much less out of your hits, he can take control of your naners so easily (long wavedash) and safely, nair eats our recovery, and he hits like a tank.

 

[steelguttey]

Hey, guys! Over at the Olimar Matchup Thread we're talking about Diddy Kong! Come on over and tell us what you think about this matchup!

 

[Searing_Sorrow]

It wouldn't really be fair. As of now many would say diddy favor, but that is mostly because this m.u almost never happens. If we compare it to brawl, the m.u has gotten better for diddy, but other than that I doubt you will get more than theory crafting.

 

[Searing_Sorrow]

I decided to create a punish game based solely on a specific character at a time to assist in massive damage combos. First rule assume FD unless told otherwise on these.
Today I was working against Roy.
Rule Best consistent combo with lvl 7 computer for randomized d.I. at least 80% accuracy.

If roy d.i left Up throw > Bair > nair > up smash > dair/fair. Can opt for jump side b in some cases for finisher. 61-66%(only works roy near 0%)
If Roy d.I right (Roy 0%) up throw > fair/(uair a specific spot near top right foot)> nair> regrab > any throw. There is a chance of being able to get, under Roy for up smash, but only got it about 50% of time. ~50% ddamage
More realistic assumes peanuts and banana damage (roy Near 22-around 40%) up throw> jump side b(easy d.I follow) (slight pause before the hit but not too long for them to mash out)chop > follow d.I Nair/ or up smash if you don't hear them mashing and opt to fall to near ground level. 36%reliable 50% with a dair finisher if no mashing.

Side b combos at (roy 0%-12%) side b chop> jab jab pause> grab up throw > jump side b. 40%
Roy At around 20% side b chop> up smash > dair. 38% damage
Before continuing further on platform combos, I would need to verify these combos worked for other people. Trying to add my technical play into what most consider a (noob) character, and the only Roy player I can try it on I may face in tournament and don't want to show new tricks just yet.

 

[steelguttey]

Spoiler: Diddy Kong

Good Stages:

Percent at which flowered purple usmash can kill at: 82%

Matchup Ratio:

Tips:

I played DLA in tournament just this Wednesday. I was impressed with myself, taking him down to last stock our first game and down to two stocks the second match.

DLA thinks that the matchup is heavily in Diddy's favor, but I disagree. I can't even call a matchup rating on it, sometimes it felt even, sometimes it felt like Olimar was better and sometimes it felt like Diddy was better. Really it came down to, how successful can I be at using his bananas against him. Thanks to coming from maining Y.Link in Melee and starting out with T.Link in PM, turns out I can do it fairly well.

I've really been thinking about this matchup a lot though, and I'd love to hear other people's input on it.

the matchup is slightly in diddy's favor. thats only because olimar's glide toss and agt are both so bad. the key to playing against a good diddy is using his nanners against you and NOT GETTING OFF STAGE. seriously the whole matchup is basically who gets off stage first loses a stock. upsmash combos wont do much due to him being a psuedo-fast faller from what i've seen. so after 2 usmashes you should start going for uairs. anyway, stages are normal, yoshi story, battlefield etc. try to out move him and just stay mobile and watch out for bananas at the same time. purple side-b is a blessing in this matchup, it shuts down all of his shenanigans if timed right. 5.5-4.5 in his favor.

go crazy

 

[Soft Serve]

Naw I think Olimar beats Diddy, honestly. I guess Diddy can out camp Olimar, but One slip-up from diddy and he gets grabed or Up-smash OoS'd, and gets zero to deathed and edge guarded for free. I might be just over exagurating because SS is the only olimar I ever get to play, but I'd rather play FOX vs him, and he made HBOX rage quit out of the olimar/fox MU when hbox still had like 2 stocks.

Its probably like 60/40 olimar at worst, might be even and I'm just inflating it in olimar's favor because the only olimar I get to play is probably the best one >.>

 

[steelguttey]

and who is this olimar you play against?

ss?